[throw310822]

I think you missed that the whole point of this race was:

"did we build a vehicle faster than a horse, yes/no?"

Which matters a lot when horses are the fastest land vehicle available. (We're so used to thinking of horses as a quaint and slow mean of transport that maybe we don't realize that for millennia they've been the fastest possible way to get from one place to another.)

[Swizec]

> "did we build a vehicle faster than a horse, yes/no?"

Yeah fair. There's also that famous human vs horse race that happens every few years. So far humans keep winning (because it's long distance)

[dwohnitmok]

If you're talking about the Man versus Horse Marathon (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man_versus_Horse_Marathon) it's the other way around. Overwhelmingly the horses win. Only occasionally does the human.

[Swizec]

I stand corrected. My memory garbled that. Thanks!